Sexuality The Female Gaze And The Arts

Female sexuality as expressed both in the art of women and in images of women in art is the focus of this collection of thirteen essays -- the second in a three-volume series on women, the arts, and society. The idea that art created by a woman has a particular relationship to the female body is explored by most of these essays.

In this “sharp, scary, gorgeously evocative tale of love, art, and obsession” (Paula Hawkins, bestselling author of The Girl on the Train), a beautiful young woman aspires to be an artist, while a man’s dark obsession may destroy her world forever. The Doll Factory is a sweeping tale of curiosity, love, and possession set among all the sordidness and soaring ambition of 1850s London. The greatest spectacle London has ever seen is being erected in Hyde Park and, among the crowd watching, two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist of unique beauty, it is the encounter of a moment—forgotten seconds later—but for Silas, a curiosity collector enchanted by the strange and beautiful, the meeting marks a new beginning. When Iris is asked to model for Pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint, and suddenly her world expands beyond anything she ever dreamed of. But she has no idea that evil stalks her. Silas, it seems, has thought of only one thing since that chance meeting, and his obsession is darkening by the day...

Girl on Girl looks at how women are using photography, the internet and the female gaze to explore self–image and female identity in contemporary art. A new generation of women is taking the art world – online and offline – by storm. In an image–obsessed culture saturated with social media, these 40 artists are using photography and the female gaze to redefine the fields of fashion, art, advertising and photojournalism, making a profound impact on our visual world. Forty artists are featured, all of whose principal subject matter is either themselves or other women. Each is accompanied by a short profile based on personal interviews with the author, giving a fascinating insight into this exciting shift in female creativity. "Charlotte Jansen has brought together some of the finest female photographers of our generation" – Refinery29 "A very important book" – Vogue Italia "Young female artists are using photography and social media to explore issues of female identity. This gorgeous book introduces 40 of them, in an investigation of photography and the female gaze."– Eva Wiseman, Observer Magazine Features work by Aneta Bartos Tonje Bøe Birkeland Nakeya Brown Juno Calypso Anja Carr Amanda Charchian Petra Collins Maisie Cousins Nathalie Daoust Shae DeTar Lalla Essaydi Maya Fuhr Yaeli Gabriely Petrina Hicks Ayana V. Jackson Lebohang Kganye Lilia Li–Mi–Yan Pixy Liao Alexandra Marzella Rania Matar Izumi Miyazaki Monika Mogi Zanele Muholi Mihaela Noroc Birthe Piontek Elizabeth Renstrom Marianna Rothen Phebe Schmidt Leah Schrager Molly Soda Johanna Stickland Iiu Susiraja Deanna Templeton Yvonne Todd Mayan Toledano Jaimie Warren Isabelle Wenzel Aviya Wyse Jessica Yatrofsky Pinar Yolaçan

Anyone who examines the history of Western art must be struck by the prevalence of images of the female body. More than any other subject, the female nude connotes `art'. The framed image of a female body, hung on the walls of an art gallery, is an icon of Western culture, a symbol of civilization and accomplishment. But how and why did the female nude acquire this status? The Female Nude brings together, in an entirely new way, analysis of the historical tradition of the female nude and discussion of recent feminist art, and by exploring the ways in which acceptable and unacceptable images of the female body are produced and maintained, renews recent debates on high culture and pornography. The Female Nude represents the first feminist survey of the most significant subject in Western art. It reveals how the female nude is now both at the centre and at the margins of high culture. At the centre, and within art historical discourse, the female nude is seen as the visual culmination of enlightenment aesthetics; at the edge, it risks losing its repectability and spilling over into the obscene.

Marking 50 years since the publication of the 'Kinsey Report', this text celebrates the diverse & multifaceted expressions of women's sexuality that have emerged since.

Leading trailblazers in contemporary art reflect on the transformations in ideology and practice that shape today's art market In New Waves, Dutch art historian Marta Gnyp interviews a number of artists and curators about contemporary art's shifting landscape. Her inquest is divided into five chapters that each address a subject of major change in recent years. "Rewriting the Canon" details the rediscovery and revaluation of several postwar artists including painters Joan Semmel, Stanley Whitney and Claudette Johnson. In "Extending New Media," artists Cory Arcangel and Alex da Corte discuss the creative possibilities posed by new technology. "New Approaches to Truth and Morality" sees installation artist Jordon Wolfson and photographer Mohamed Bourouissa reflect on the ethics of art making. "New Classic Art" examines the practices of four artists--Claire Tabouret, Adriana Varejão, Daniel Richter and Jenny Saville--whose work provides a contemporary spin on the classical art tradition. Finally, Gnyp speaks to several curators, collectors and museum directors to discuss the evolving art market in the 21st century.

Art historian Catherine McCormack challenges how culture teaches us to see and value women, their bodies, and their lives. Venus, maiden, wife, mother, monster—women have been bound so long by these restrictive roles, codified by patriarchal culture, that we scarcely see them. Catherine McCormack illuminates the assumptions behind these stereotypes whether writ large or subtly hidden. She ranges through Western art—think Titian, Botticelli, and Millais—and the image-saturated world of fashion photographs, advertisements, and social media, and boldly counters these depictions by turning to the work of women artists like Morisot, Ringgold, Lacy, and Walker, who offer alternative images for exploring women’s identity, sexuality, race, and power in more complex ways.

Griselda Pollock provides concrete historical analyses of key moments in the formation of modern culture to reveal the sexual politics at the heart of modernist art. Crucially, she not only explores a feminist re-reading of the works of canonical male Impressionist and Pre-Raphaelite artists including Edgar Degas and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but als